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from the perfect-gin-and-tonic-for-fun-and-profit dept

As Techdirt recently discussed, the drug pipeline is running
dry, as Big Pharma's patents are beginning to expire, and the drug companies are freaking out. For years they have been spending more money on research and testing and getting fewer results. This year alone they are
going to have 11 patents expire on drugs that bring in approximately $50 billion in revenue to the big pharma firms. Of course, the flip side to this is that consumers can start saving about 95% on the price of those drugs, as generics hit the market. The
drug companies have gotten to a point where the incremental increases in
efficiencies are so small as to be meaningless. What is coming is more personalized and targeted treatments for diseases -- treatments that do not
require bulk production of a specific chemical, but individual testing and
personalized care, and not lifetime treatments and repeat sales, but cures. The treatments will be expensive to begin with, but they will become less expensive over
time. The business model of healthcare is about to
change dramatically, and Big Pharma needs to do something to maintain their profits.
Unfortunately, they seem to have chosen the path of regulating the competition
out of existence, rather than competing and innovating.

One way the drug companies have been coping is to repackage and rebrand
health food supplements. Drugs like Lovaza, which is nothing
more than the fish oil you can get in health food stores, and
lovastatin which has been in use for roughly a thousand years
(800 AD) in the form of red yeast rice. In the case of
lovastatin, the FDA banned the supplements because they are "identical to a drug
and, thus, subject to regulation as a drug." That is very convenient
for the drug company, which now charges monopoly rents on the product -- which can increase prices at ridiculous levels.

More recently, the FDA banned 500 prescription drugs that had been on the market and working for years. To be fair, it was really 50-100 drugs (pdf), made by different companies, but that just highlights how there was actual competition in the marketplace for these drugs, which has now been removed. For
all of the drugs, there is either a high-priced prescription version, or all
the small manufacturers have been removed, leaving a virtual monopoly for one
or more larger companies. This process began in 2006 when the
FDA decided to remove marketed unapproved drugs (pdf).

The reasoning is that these drugs weren't ever technically "approved" by the FDA. While the FDA has been around for about a century, the business of having the FDA first approve drugs before they could go on the market came about closer to fifty years ago, and a bunch of "unapproved drugs" that were in common usage before that never got approved. The FDA is targeting many of those, even if they have a long history in the marketplace. Conveniently, of course, there always seems to be a pharma company with a monopolized substitute ready.

Another drug removed was the antihistamine carbinoxamine,
which was created prior to needing FDA approval, in the early 1950s. It was
approved by the FDA in a slightly modified form in 2006. It is
now sold exclusively by Mikart, Inc and Pamlab, LLC with no future competition
because the FDA has banned all 120 other
versions of carbinoxamine. You can imagine just how much that must increase the profits for Mikart and Pamlab on carbinoxamine, though that seems to come at the expense of consumers.

It's
really nice being granted a government monopoly.

As for the drugs now being banned in this latest purge, you can argue that it's not really 500
drugs, because many are different combinations of the same 50 to 100 drugs.
To be sold, these disapproved drugs will require drug trials and
certification -- a massive and expensive process. Under current law, after
successful completion of FDA trials these drugs will be granted approval. But
in every case these trials are almost certainly not necessary. And, "coincidentally" in almost every case, there is a chemically similar
patented version ready to go. This is a pure money grab: replacing old
tried and true drugs, with monopoly priced prescription drugs. It just
requires removing competing drugs from the market to increase profits.

And with that, I'm off to go have a gin and tonic, while it's still legal...

from the favorites-of-the-week dept

In human history, we have people who stand out. These are the people that
believe in community, that fight oppression, that innovate, that create the next
big thing sometimes with out even knowing it. That's who I've chosen to highlight in Techdirt posts from the past week.

The people around you and the community you build is important. Community
Is About Enabling People To Be Heard. Everyone wants to be a part of
something larger, something greater than themselves. Unless you have a huge ego
and just want to be worshipped.

For standing up to those who wish to oppress, I give serious Kudos
To Twitter For Not Just Rolling Over When The US Gov't Asked For Info.
Some of what Twitter did comes from doing what is right and just and maintaining
trust. And some of it comes from the fear of financial loss. In the world of
business on the internet, they are related. People now talk at the speed of light,
so if you break the trust everyone knows almost immediately. This brings me to
three givens for internet community, if you lose the trust, you fail to
innovate, or if you get bought
up by Rupert Murdoch, you lose the community.

Small innovations that occur as part of a larger trend are often overlooked by
incumbent businesses. One such trend is the rise of low cost, high quality
digital cameras. While the iPhone is does not have the best video quality, a Korean
Director Shot a Movie With Just iPhones. The movie is 30 minutes long and
seems to be more of a publicity stunt targeted at iWhatever fanbois than a
serious attempt at film making. This puts the fact that films and TV shows can
be made on a cellphone in the public mind. Combine that with YouTube extending
the length of allowable videos and you have a serious disruption waiting to
happen. It is only a matter of time before someone does a TV series about a
robot on an Android, just for the publicity it will generate.

I have great hope for the next couple of years. Slowly we are seeing things
change, sometime for the worse -- sometimes for the better. On one side, we see the
incumbents in several industries fighting the changes that are occuring with
lawsuits, and laws designed to stop the advancements being made. On the other
side, we see small incremental changes being made in reaction to these laws and
lawsuits. Information technology, open source, online communities like Facebook
and Linkedin, changes in the way we find information, all marching forward at a
very rapid and predictable rate. We see existing disruptive trends accelerating,
and new ones occuring all the time. None of which can be stopped, just slowed
down a little.

What the fuck is wrong with you and why do you have such a hard-on for Google?

It is the same method that they use increase the length of copyright. Expansion of influence via normalization, in one case its "they have a longer length of copyright, you should also", in the case of Google, they get the biggest player on the block to bow to them, and then go after the smaller search engines saying "they are doing this, you should also".

If you are in the business of keeping a country safe, you do not torture people. You torture people if you want job security, as that is the simplest way to turn people against you and turn them into threats ....

They spy and hear all the nasty things people are saying about the government. This leads to paranoia, and a drive to find all the people responsible for these nasty words. Which leads to them hearing even more nasty thing ... rinse, lather, repeat.

Meanwhile the real bad guys are using encrypted methods of communication and eluding all this craziness.

Has crying wolf on terrorism lost its ability to sway the population, is that why you are now resorting to the big gun of fear statements, "For the Children".

I for one cringe every time I hear the words "to protect you from (insert flavor of the day threat here)" or "for the children". History shows, each time these phrases are used, you are attempting to reduce peoples rights.

I am sure that most people, would prefer children live under the threat of abduction, rather than the totalitarian, 1984 style surveillance state, the US federal government seems intent on creating.

It is highly unlikely that corporations will take over. Short and long term, most technology is headed away from having central authorities and middlemen, information, banking, energy, water, food, manufacturing are just a few on a very long list. On top of that, deflationary economic pressure, from falling energy prices and manufacturing costs, pretty much wreck governmental central authorities over the next 20-25 years as their tax revenues dry up.

The specific goal of RICO is to punish the use of an enterprise to engage in certain criminal activities. A person who uses an enterprise to engage in a pattern of racketeering may be convicted under the RICO criminal statute (18 U.S.C.A. § 1963). An enterprise is defined as "any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity." A pattern is defined as "at least two acts of racketeering activity, one of which occurred after the effective date of [RICO's passage] and the last of which occurred within 10 years … after commission of a prior act of racketeering activity."